There were those who believed that the Corellian system was artificial; that it's perfect orbits and perfect symmetry were too ordered not to have been the result of some ancient intent. Fitting then that the eldest brother should be the sight of as abhorrent a spectacle as this.

It was supposed to be Corellia Day, a celebration of what remained of the thriving interstellar society that Corellia had been the heart of in antiquity; but on this occasion, the events had been hijacked for another purpose. People flooded the streets of Coronet city, swarming in their masses to gaze in both varieties of awe at the display the Galactic Empire had placed in their sky. Some were elated and reassured by the show of force, the renewed vow by their Imperial overlords that despite the Treaty, and despite the short-lived conquest of Duro, the planet Corellia and her people had never been more safely under the Empire's protection. Some were terrified by the display of oppression, the renewed vow by their Imperial overlords that despite the Treaty, despite the short-lived liberation of Duro, despite all the hope that the Alliance of Free Planets brought to the galaxy, the planet Corellia and her people had never been more firmly under the Empire's heel, and would never enjoy the liberty that so many of them had craved.

Others, like Sphyrna Mokarran, looked upon the formation of Imperial starships and fighters with disgust. From his vantage point atop a long-abandoned clocktower, he had a very different perspective on the display than the Empire had intended. He didn't look up and witness the carefully staged visual of a mighty Imperial-class Star Destroyer blocking out the sun: he watched it's dagger-shaped shadow stab it's way through the heart of yet another dominated world. He watched as a mile long star cruiser rolled unopposed over a city too paralysed with fear of change to try and drive it away.

But not everyone on Corellia was afraid. Sphyrna shifted in his nest, sighting through the interlocking network of scopes that allowed his inconveniently proportioned Ithorian physiology witness the destination of his rifle's aim. It was an intricate plan, set in motion months ago when overtures towards a peace treaty with the Galactic Empire had first begun. It started with discontent, from Corellians, Ithorians, Iridonians, Nautolans; all the species who, by abandoning their war, the Alliance was surrendering to their fate beneath the Empire's boots. It had worsened when the compromise had been struck; a border drawn, discontents on both sides given the choice between enduring the masters that had been chosen for them by committee, or abandoning all that they knew and loved to join the refugees flocking across the border in search of new homes and new lives that they couldn't even be sure would exist.

And then resistance had been reborn. Not every member of the Alliance was willing to abandon Corellia to it's fate. Remnants of the SpecForce and SpecOps detachments, of rebel cells on all the Five Brothers, of the discontents who'd fled from Duro when Imperial control had been restored; they had come together in secret, to perform one simple act; one single series of of events that would culminate in what Sphyrna Mokarran was about to do.

He watched as the shadow moved across the city, straddling districts at a time. Schools, libraries, hospitals, apartments for the hard working backbone of Corellian society; these weren't his targets. He waited with snipers' patience as the shadow advanced, waiting until it would reach the sparser populations of the outskirts, where Imperial industry and the sprawling homesteads of wealthy competed for who would dominate and sully Corellia's natural beauty.

The corner of West 23rd and 5th; the point that computers had decreed would mark the defining line. Mathematics that Sphyrna could not comprehend had reached that conclusion, factored in air currents and momentum and gravity differentials that he didn't even understand. Not that it mattered. The line was the line; his task wasn't his question.

His task was this.

The Ithorian's fingers closed around the trigger of his rifle, specially constructed for just this purpose. It was unlike any weapon he had ever fired before, but then it had to be: he wasn't hurling some ionised bolt of energy towards an unsuspecting target. Deep in the heart of the rifle, beneath the bolted on power packs and cobbled together amplifiers, a signal generator whirred into life, hard-coded to emit a devastatingly powerful pulse along a single wavelength. It wouldn't be seen by the naked eye; would be too narrow-band and focused to ever triangulate. In fact, only one thing in all the world would ever be aware of that signal.

Deep within the bowels of the Star Destroyer Warspite, one of dozens of detonator packs flickered into life.

Coronet felt the explosion as much as they heard it. Space would normally have swallowed the echoing boom of a starship hull being ruptured from within, but Corellia's atmosphere carried the bone-shaking sound on the back of a compression wave that shattered windows in it's immediate wake, and resonated across the city for miles around. Any eyes that hadn't already been fixed on the sky turned upwards, and the people of Corellia stood united in their terror as, almost in slow motion, the Warspite's repulsorlifts failed an the great white dagger plunged towards the ground.

The impact shook the city with enough force to register on seismographs half a world away. Buildings crumpled as the Warspite tore through the skyline, jagged shards of warehouses and factories fighting back to tear fiery scars in the Star Destroyer's hull. Dark plumes of smoke spiralled into the sky, fire oozing like seeping blood from the starship's wounds. Coronet groaned as the plunging dagger lodged itself in her heart.

Sphyrna Mokarran rose from his perch. This was his task. Trigger the bomb. Fell the Star Destroyer. Send a message. It was a message without words, but it was clear to all who heard it what it meant.

To any surviving Rebels taking refuge among the stars: we are here. We are waiting.